My dad has been asking me to make him a website for his stones, minerals, and jewels. I told him I would, but I have no clue where to begin. He has a Pro stores account on eBay, which builds websites like homestead, and geocities...ugly and unprofessional to sum it up. I am familiar with some HTML (thanks to the BBS for refreshing my memory), but I don't think I'll be using it too much. What programs can I use to build websites? I have photoshop (no skills) to make some things look professional. What about Microsoft Expression Web 3.0? Is that something I could use? I have to put over 500 items on it, and I want a nice lay out. Nothing too special.
Why don't you shell out a few bucks to one of the gazillion website designers out there and wash your hands of it?
you could maybe upload all the photos to flickr etc then use their embed code to make a gallery / slidehow http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/2005/09/flash-slideshow.html
If you have a Creative Suites package. The four most used programs in web design would probably be Flash, Fireworks, Dreamworks, and Photoshop. If you don't have those... hire somebody. It's cheap.
WHATEVER you do, don't use Joomla or many of the other proprietary website design one-stop solutions. They make SEO impossible. http://www.oscommerce.com/ OSCommerce is free if you have a PHP server to host it, and they have a great and very friendly support community that will provide free help on small issues.
Nah just use Zen-Cart, easy software and easy to install. If you need help ask me, I have a site: xpoke.com made with zen-cart and I don't have a whole lot of website design skills, but it looks pretty professional I think.
Again, SEO suicide. If a website looks good on the web, and nobody views it, does it make a sound? Those websites all inherently have validation issues, which cause search engines to pass them by.
I'm currently using Visual Studio and C# to build a web based project management and costing system for my thesis.
